(ParaNorman, 2012)
Synopsis:
The story is about the protagonist, Norman was a boy who talk to the dead. He was bullied by other kids in the school due to his abnormal. When they were rehearsing the school play for the 300th Anniversary of Witch's Execution, he saw the vision of the town's past. On the same day, Norman met his uncle, Mr. Prenderghast who tell him that he needs to be responsible for the town's safety. During the official school play, Norman had another vision of town's past which was people were hunting for the witch in the woods, then he yelled what he saw causing himself grounded by his father. The next day, Mr. Prenderghast's spirit found Norman and told him to read the book before sunset. After Norman promised him, Mr. Prenderghast's spirit gone disappeared. After all the hesitation, Norman finally decided to take the responsibility. Finally, He and his companions overcame all the problems and his family accepted as who he was.(Butler & Fell, 2012)
Analysis:
The theory of Postmodernism is refer to anti-modernism, that has oppose to the universals, meta-narrative, generality, and critical of enlightenment. There is no history progression in postmodernism. There is also no 'Truth, even if there is a 'Truth', but there will be no any 'foundations' for it.
The genre bending is one of the characteristic for Postmodernism. It means bending the classification of film, integrating two or more genre in the film. The bend of genre in the film 'ParaNorman' is very obvious.
The unnatural horror genre is clearly displayed in the film as the protagonist of the film, Norman, would speak with the dead. He could see and talk with the ghost. Normally, the horror genre that falls under the category of unnatural could be having the characteristic of threat to the normalcy or bodily mutilations and mutations. The film has the characteristic of threat to normalcy, the threats that are presented in film were from both the internal and the external forces threatening the civilians. For the internal threat, it could be the residents of the town. When the zombies were appeared in the town, they started to use weapons and other stuffs that was nearby them to attack the zombies. At the end, the town was destroyed by the residents themselves. As for the external threat, it could be the zombies who had back from the death and invaded the town where Norman was living.
Another genre that is also can be found obviously in the film is the teen genre. The teen genre refers to the films that are targeting specific audience, which is the teenager. Most of the teen film's setting will be in the high school or universities, at the mall and sometimes in the house of the characters. The location of the locker is the most common scene for the teen film.(isabella_milne, 2013) There are some scenes that shown the protagonist was bullied by his classmate, Alvin, at the locker of the high school. There are also some scenes was shown that the protagonist was talking with his family in his house. There are also some teen issues involved in the film. When Neil, friend of Norman asked him came out to play, but Norman had an issue of whether to go the graveyard or not. Neil heard him but suggested Norman not to go in order to ensure his safety. Norman thought that Neil did not know what he was dealing so he told Neil to just go back home.
Besides, comedy is also one of the genre that is being shown in the film. Comedies are the films that are designed to draw laughter out of audience. It normally revisit and poke fun of daily social and cultural frustrations. There was a scene that Norman was awakened by his alarm with the sound of zombies roaring, then scared by the models, posters and slippers that is placed in his room. Due to all those things were Norman's collection, when the audience saw Norman was scared by his own collection, it looks funny in the scenes. Another scene was Neil went to Norman's house to ask him if he want to play. At first, Neil was wearing a hockey mask, this scared Norman out. Then, when Neil lifted up the mask, then only Norman felt relieved. Due to the contrast of the mask and Neil, this will makes audience laugh at it.
Action genre is also included in the film too. It contains continuous high energy physical stunts and activities. The chase scenes, fights and escapes can be included as action too. When Neil, Mitch and Courtney found Norman, Norman told them to drive the car away immediately as there were zombies chased after him. Mitch immediately drove his car away, but one of the zombies success to jump up to the car. To get rid of the zombies, they decided to go Town Hall to find out where was the witch being buried. On their way to the Town Hall, they were chased by the traffic police due to the speeding. There was also another scene that described the action genre very well. It was the scene when Norman tried to talk to the witch, but the witch did not welcome him. In order to let Norman quit, the witch used trick like the spikes appeared to block the way of Norman. Norman avoided them and finally went to a closer place to the witch.
Conclusion:
I had do some research on the specific genre, teen film. It targeted specific audience, which is the teenagers, so the film contents are more about what kind of situations might be happened on a teenager. Usually there are some stereotypical characters will always appeared in the scene, such as nerd, cheerleader, jock and so on.
Finally, this film 'ParaNorman' not only bring laughter to us, but also had lead us to think deep about the nature of human. From the scene that Norman's classmate bullied him to the scene that the villagers attacked the zombies violently without thinking what was even happening, we can see that the nature of human by bullying others can be small to bully verbally until big to bully violently. This will be a problem that we need to consider.
References:
Butler, C., & Fell, S. (Directors). (2012). ParaNorman
isabella _milne. (2013, August 11). Codes and conventions of the teen genre. Retrieved February 28, 2017, from SlideShare, https://www.slideshare.net/isabella_milne/codes-and-conventions-of-the-teen-genre
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